Review: Bob’s Burgers ‘Easy Commercial, Easy Go-mercial’

Spoilers Below

Unlike the football fakeout that The Simpsons pulled on us, last night’s Bob’s Burgers, was, in fact, a Super Bowl episode.

In another episode that pitted Bob against his rival restaurateur, Jimmy Pesto, this time it concerned Bob’s concerns about drawing more customers for the big game. Thus he decided to shell out three grand in order to air a local commercial during the broadcast.

They enlisted amateur director Ralph (despite numerous hilarious critiques of the new character, held by everyone in the family) to help shoot it. After initially wanting to make a family-centered commercial, Bob & Ralph instead opted to use former NFL player Sandy Fry to star in the ad, and had him offer to sign autographs at the restaurant after the game.

However, when the commercial aired, the family became angry at Bob cutting them out, and Pesto one-upped the Belchers’ ad by stealing Sandy Fry and using him to insult Bob’s Burgers – in a commercial that aired immediately after Bob’s.

After Bob confronted Jimmy & Sandy with no success, Gene inadvertently flooded Pesto’s via a clogged toilet, and the customers fled, handing another victory to Bob.

In case you missed it:

1) This episode’s burgers included the Winter Muensterland Burger, The Longest Chard Burger, and the Kale Mary Burger.

2) Tina offered hometown support when hearing they live in a bi-county area: “I didn’t know our county was bi. Good for us!”

3) Bob briefly weighed murdering Jimmy Pesto on the imaginary advice of a “talking” zucchini.

4) One of the funniest reasons that the family disapproved of Ralph came from Gene: “He pees sitting down… Facing the toilet.”

5) Gene was shocked to learn Linda didn’t like his haircut. I was too.

6) Bob apparently has no problem with marrying Sandy “Can Can” Fry, but would never consider taking his name.

7) Pizza is inaccurately labeled as a bad companion to French fries, which is a fallacy, considering both and pizza and fries go well with everything.

8) The guy that laughed at each of Pesto’s jokes had me rolling by the end.

9) Sandy clearly doesn’t know when to stop (or how puns work): “Tran’s Noodle goes good with Fry.”

Although the episode succeeded in the end, there were too many swings-and-misses along the way. It definitely had some signature funny moments, but for an episode that prominently featured the kids, it failed to live up to the standard set by scores of previous installments.

Also, does anyone else feel the Belcher/Pesto rival is a bit overplayed? Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with this formula, but compare this episode to one like “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” (S1E6 – Where Bob gets a second job as a cab driver to pay for Tina’s birthday party) and it doesn’t come close. Of course the fact that “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” was a Tina-centric episode helped immensely.

Speaking of which, I must also add that it was an absolute travesty to only allot a few measly seconds to the complicated Jimmy Jr./Tina relationship aspect of the show, when a storyline like this allowed ample opportunities for the two (possible) lovebirds to interact.

Overall, this episode ended up being the opposite of The Simpsons before it, as it looked great on paper, but never managed to reach its full potential. If it wasn’t for the “unused” commercial footage during the end credits, this one could’ve landed an even lower rating.